Emyr has a thorough knowledge of the legal, technical and procedural aspects of promoting infrastructure, in particular roads, rail and energy and relishes getting to grips with the expert evidence. Significant cases include:

• Cardiff Parkway Station. Emyr appeared for Cardiff Council at the called in hearings in July 2023 and January 2024 in support of the proposal for a new inter-city station with a business park of up to 90,000m2. The First Minister granted permission on 30 January 2025 agreeing with the inspector that the loss of SSSI land was outweighed by the sustainability benefits, the advantage of focusing new development around public transport and the economic development benefits.
• Cory Decarbonisation Project, Bexley. Emyr appeared for Thames Water Utilities as one of two principal objectors at hearings in February 2025 and thereafter drafted representations maintaining inter alia that compulsory acquisition of the freehold interest in TWUL’s Crossness Nature Reserve was disproportionate as rights to enhance the same would be sufficient. S/S granted consent 5 November 2025.
• Green Gen Cymru March 2025 ongoing. Emyr advises Green GEN Cymru in relation to three grid projects - Vyrnwy-Frankton, Towy-Teifi and Towy-Usk. In April 2025 Emyr appeared for Green GEN at hearings for warrants to enforce Green GEN’s rights as an acquiring authority to conduct engineering and environmental surveys pursuant to Part 7 of the Housing and Planning Act. Currently Emyr represents Green GEN in a judicial review claim brought by the Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales and others.
• Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon Plc v S/S for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Welsh Ministers and Swansea Council [2022] EWCA Civ 1579.  Emyr advised and appeared for  Welsh Ministers in a claim for a declaration as to whether the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon DCO was extant or lapsed. The issue was whether the provisions in the DCO requiring commencement within 5 years of the DCO coming into effect modified the default provisions in sections 154 and 155 of the Planning Act 2008 as to commencement or whether the DCO was governed by two different time limits.  Welsh Ministers succeeded in the High Court and the promoter’s appeal was dismissed by the Court of Appeal in December 2022. 
• Snowdonia Pumped Hydro – Glyn Rhonwy. Emyr acts for the promoter of the Snowdonia Pumped Hydro project in respect of the application under the Commons Act 1965 for dergistration and exchange which is required to implement the DNS consent.
• M2 Junction 5. Emyr was instructed by Highways England to promote its case for a new grade separated junction partly located in the Kent AONB (cost £92 million). A virtual inquiry was held over three weeks in November and December 2020. (Orders made/confirmed)
• Woodville to Swadlincote Regeneration Route. Emyr acted for Derbyshire County Council in promoting a new road to facilitate the development of former open cast mining land (cost £11 million). One week inquiry in January 2020 (Orders confirmed).
• A2 Bean and Ebbsfleet junction improvements (Ebbsfleet Garden City). Instructed by Highways England to promote its case for the enlargement of two junctions required to enable the development of the Ebbsfleet Garden City (cost £117 million). Two week inquiry in October 2019. (Orders made/confirmed)
• Wylfa Newydd DCO (nuclear power station). Emyr, led by Tim Corner QC, represented  the Welsh Government in the examination into the application to develop a new nuclear power station on Anglesey between October 2018 and March 2019.(Application withdrawn January 2021).
• A465, sections 5 and 6. Emyr acted alone for the Welsh Government in promoting the dualling of some 18 km of the Heads of the Valleys road at a cost of £550 million. The 6 week public inquiry took place in April- May 2018. (Orders made/confirmed).
• M4 corridor around Newport. Between July 2015 and March 2018 Emyr was instructed as a junior to Morag Ellis QC as part of the Welsh Government team promoting 24km of new motorway around Newport. The public inquiry sat for 83 days. Emyr led and cross examined most of the evidence relating to economics, traffic, carbon, air quality, noise, water quality, flooding and agriculture. (Joint inspectors recommended that the orders be made but First Minister decided not to proceed on financial and environmental grounds).
• A40 Robeston Wathen bypass. Emyr was junior counsel, with Winston Roddick QC, for Pembrokeshire CC in the first special assembly procedure proceedings to reach the National Assembly of Wales in 2008. Pembrokeshire challenged Welsh Government's decision to promote a 2 + 1 road configuration for the A40 Robeston Wathen bypass on the grounds that a full dual carriageway was safer and provided better value for money. He led and cross examined all the economic and traffic evidence.

Emyr has regularly represented local planning authorities in inquiries relating to wind farms and residential development. He appeared in the first solar farm appeal in Wales and has a great deal of experience in relation to solar development at hearings, inquiries and the High Court.

He has undertaken sundry enforcement appeals for local planning authorities and landowners and has advised national housebuilders and local authorities on the construction of section 106 agreements.

Emyr regularly carries out judicial review and statutory challenge work relating to planning decisions and those relating to listed buildings and minerals e.g. 

• Wild Justice Ltd v Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority [2025] EWHC 2249 (Admin). Judicial review of the grant of permission to a coasteering operator to convert an old bus depot into a purpose-built centre for coasteering and kayaking activities in close proximity to a cove populated by breeding birds and seals which was part of SAC and SSSI. Challenge based on (i) non publication of confidential National Trust coasteering concordat contrary to s 100D of Local Government Act 1972; (ii) unlawful assessment of risk to SAC (iii) failure to consider SSSI (iv) unlawful conditions (v) impermissible regard to environmental benefits of eco-tourism. Emyr acted for the National Park. Decision quashed on SSSI ground.
• SPVRG v Pembrokeshire County Council [2025] EWHC 251 (Admin). Emyr acted for a community group challenging by judicial review a decision of the Council to grant permission for a significant extension to an existing static caravan park. The full Council had supported the planning committee’s decision to grant permission contrary to clear officer recommendation. The decision was quashed on two grounds. First, that the Council’s decision was not properly reasoned given the departure from the development plan and clear officer recommendation. Secondly, that the Council’s treatment of economic benefit was unlawful in failing to assess properly the net overall benefit to the county and focusing instead on the impact on the caravan park itself.
• Queens College Cambridge, Owlstone Croft passivhaus postgraduate accommodation scheme. Emyr appeared for Cambridge County Council, who had refused permission contrary to officer recommendation, at a 7 day inquiry held in September 2023. Principal issues related to the scale of the development, the impact on the adjacent Paradise Nature Reserve and ecology (barbastelle bats).  
• Cruxton Farm solar farm development. Application to construct solar farm in Dorset AONB. Principal issues were the impact on landscape character and visual amenity; whether the climate emergency qualified as an exceptional circumstance within the meaning of NPPF para 177 thereby justifying major development in an AONB; the weight to be given to the loss of Best and Most Versatile agricultural land during the 40 years when the solar farm would operate; and the weight to be given to the grid connection in view of UK government’s policy to rapidly expand the grid. Emyr appeared for the LPA at the inquiry held in July-August 2023 (S/S refused consent).
• University College London Hospitals Charity v Camden LBC [2023] EWHC 1070 (KB) Emyr acted for Camden, led by Morag Ellis KC, in a High Court claim for declaratory relief concerning the enforceability of a clause in a section 106 agreement relating to the development of the University College Hospital Macmillan Cancer Centre allowing Camden to acquire the parcel of land identified for affordable housing for £1 where the developer has failed to fulfil the obligation to provide affordable housing. 
• Representing Natural Resources Wales at the Rhoscrowther Wind Farm DNS inquiry, September 2022
• R (on the application of SPVRG Ltd) v Pembrokeshire CC [2022] EWHC 143 (Admin). Emyr appeared for a residents’ group judicially reviewing various planning permissions facilitating the expansion of a static caravan park. Three decisions were challenged. The fundamental permission dated from 2016 and the court refused to extend time to challenge that or the second decision, also out of time, at the renewal hearing. Permission was granted to challenge the third decision on 7 grounds. The caravan park had a long and chequered history dating back to the early 1980s with evidential gaps due to the passage of time and local government reorganisation. During the course of the proceedings a planning agreement from 1987 was discovered. The status, effect and relevant of this agreement and its impact on the fall-back position gave rise to factually and legally complicated issues reflected in the length of Steyn J’s judgment.
• Gwernigron Solar Farm October 2022 to June 2023. Statutory review challenge of the decision of Welsh Ministers to depart from planning inspector’s recommendation for approval on the ground of the project’s adverse impact on best and most versatile agricultural land. Emyr appeared for Welsh Ministers. Claim dismissed following all day renewal hearing.
• McGaw v Welsh Ministers & Swansea County Council [2021] EWCA Civ 976. Emyr acted for a home owner who applied for a lawful development certificate for a garden room on the basis that it would constitute permitted development. The building was to be built into a sloping garden which had already been excavated. On a statutory review of the inspector’s decision to refuse the appeal against the LPA’s refusal the High Court quashed the inspector’s decision and mandated the Welsh Ministers to grant an LDC. The court’s decision that height restrictions are to be assessed against finished ground levels rather than pre-construction ground levels has wide ranging implications for PD rights. The Court of Appeal upheld the High Court’s decision: it was acceptable to assess the height by reference to land outside the curtilage and which was separated from the building by a boundary wall. 
• Persimmon Homes v Welsh Ministers. Emyr acted for Welsh Ministers in respect of Persimmon’s statutory planning review of a decision to refuse its appeal for outline planning permission for 300 residential units. Claim conceded July 2021. 
• Celtic Energy Ltd v Welsh Ministers, the Coal Authority. Emyr acted for Welsh Ministers in defending Celtic Energy’s judicial review of its decision not to approve a coal licence under section 26A of the Coal Industry Act 1994 for the Nant Helen open cast site. Claim was discontinued in early 2021. 
• R (on the application of Freemont (Denbigh) Ltd) v Welsh Ministers [2016] EWHC 482 (Admin). Emyr acted for Welsh Government in response to a challenge to its confirmation of a CPO and of an earlier section 55 notice for the reimbursement of urgent works regarding the Grade II* listed Asylum in Denbigh; case dealt with allegations of fraud and the relevance or otherwise of a bank bond.
• Payne v Caerphilly CBC [2009] RVR 66. Emyr acted for the local authority in a claim for compensation for compliance with a stop notice re an old colliery waste tip when enforcement notice later quashed; determined that the meaning of a planning permission was subject to res judicata and that no entitlement to compensation.

Emyr has acted for landowners impacted by the compulsory purchase of land, especially regarding new roads, at the acquisition stage and at the compensation stage as well as acting for acquiring authorities. 

In promoting the M4 corridor around Newport and sections 5 and 6 of the A465 Emyr advised the Welsh Government in respect of a large number of compulsory acquisition and compensation matters and gave advice regarding a similarly wide range of issues when acting for Highways England on the A2Bean and M2 junction 5 projects.  

Recent examples of compensation work include:

• Cleveland Potash Ltd v The Honourable Ferelith Drummond and others [2024] EWHC 1292 (Ch D). High Court application in the BPC for rights to use many miles of former mining tunnels 1.2km underground to access an offshore polyhalite mine. Emyr, led by Morag Ellis KC, acts for the developer in the application under the Mines (Working Facilities and Support) Act 1966. Extensive valuation issues with more than £10 million between the developer and the landowners. A preliminary issue turning on the interpretation of a reservation in a conveyance from 1946 was determined in May 2024. The hearing re all other issues including quantum was heard over 3 days in July 2025. Issues include whether the Pointe Gourde principle applies to compensation, whether the key value of the landowners’ land should be disregarded, whether a wayleave royalty is appropriate, and the extent to which authority of Bocardo v Star Energy [2010] UKSC 35 can be distinguished. Judgment awaited.
• Oaklion Properties Ltd v Denbighshire County Council [2021] UKUT 0049 (LC). Emyr acted for the acquiring authority in respect of the value of a building fire damaged some 20 years prior to acquisition and which had formerly been used as an amusement arcade with residential use on the upper floors. The case turned on the appropriate valuation method – residual valuation versus comparable method, factual questions as to the condition of the property and whether it would have been demolished or refurbished in the no scheme world. 
• Gliddon & Sons Ltd v Somerset County Council. Emyr acted for the landowner whose commercial, retail and car parking land was required for the Taunton Northern Inner Distributor road scheme.  The landowner was permitted to make a further CAAD application after issuing the claim, appealed the certificate and the claim was successfully settled at a mediation in 2022.
• Mintblue Properties Ltd, Re Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) [2016] UKUT 172. Emyr acted successfully for the landowner in its CAAD appeal for residential development without affordable housing. The compensation claim was issued in 2019 and included  a ‘holding costs’ claim for additional debt interest paid attributable to the CPO resulting in Welsh Government instructing a banking silk as well as a planning silk due to the complexities of the funding arrangement and the landowner’s arrangements with other group companies. The compensation claim was settled at mediation in March 2022 shortly prior to the listing of the 5 day Upper Tribunal hearing

• Emyr has considerable experience of town and village green work having been appointed to act as inspector by numerous Commons Registration Authorities as well as appearing as an advocate for applicants and objector landowners. In November 2025 Emyr appeared for the Council at the Bronllys Town and Village Green inquiry which turned on statutory incompatibility.

Emyr has undertaken a wide range of work relating to commons including:

• conducting private law litigation in the county court and the Property Chamber, First-tier Tribunal in respect of adverse possession claims to common land, claims in trespass/nuisance and claims relating to unauthorised development and fencing;
• advising the Welsh Government in respect of applications to deregister common required to facilitate major developments e.g. Circuit of Wales motor racing project, Mynydd y Gwair windfarm;
• advising the Welsh Government and local authorities in respect of the acquisition of common land required to enable the construction of highways.

Emyr has advised and represented local authorities on various planning matters, judicial reviews and property related litigation including whether exclusivity rights granted to tenants offend the Competition Act 1998.

He has conducted a great deal of highways and public rights of way work for local planning authorities and landowners such as:

• Appearing for Cardiff County Council at the inquiry confirming the Ely River Footpath Orders at St Fagans June 2022
• appearing as an advocate in sundry other inquiries into modifications of the Definitive Map;
• advocacy work in Magistrates and Crown Courts relating to matters such as the maintenance of highways, the stopping up and/or diversion of highways and obstruction of highways;
• advisory work with regard to Traffic Road Orders;
• judicial review work relating to highways e.g. Trail Riders Fellowship v Powys CC [2013] EWHC 3144 (Admin) (challenge to the legality of temporary traffic regulation orders TTROs made against the background of section 56 proceedings in the Crown Court)

Emyr has experience of a wide range of environmental work. Recent examples include:

• Platts Agricultural Ltd v Natural Resources Wales. Emyr appeared for NRW in an appeal against its refusal to grant an environmental permit to a well-established company that had been supplying animal bedding to the dairy industry for many years. The issue was whether treated wood waste, sourced from furniture manufacturers, was acceptable for use as animal bedding. The Appellant argued that NRW’s regulatory position was contrary to the scientific evidence adduced by it from 4 scientists and veterinarians. After a 7 day inquiry in June-July 2024 the inspector dismissed the appeal, concluding that there was a risk to human health, the environment and animals from the bedding and that the appellant had not complied with its own environmental procedures. The case has significant ramifications for the animal bedding industry.
• Cors Caranod. Appeal under s 28E of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 against NRW’s refusal to consent to a gamebird programme on SSSI land. Emyr appeared for the regulator at the hearing into this appeal which took place in October 2024. Principal issues related to eutrophication and the reliability of the regulator’s ammonia modelling. Decision awaited. 
• Forest Walk, Talbot Green. Appeal against flood risk remediation notice December 2023. Emyr acted for NRW as respondent in an appeal against a remediation notice requiring a landowner to remove a bund which displaced flood water from a wooded flood plain thereby increasing the risks of flooding downstream. Appeal dismissed.
• Advisory work for the regulator and undertakers in respect of the Reservoirs Act 1975, April 2024.  
• Advising the Canal River Trust as to the impact of the Well Being of Future Generations Act 2015 on appeals against abstract licence determinations, September 23 to April 2024.

As well conducting public law work in the fields of planning and highways Emyr has experience of judicial review work in fields such as education and health. Cases of interest include:

• Wern Fraith, Carmarthenshire CC v Welsh Language Commissioner 2024-25. Emyr advised and drafted representations for Carmarthenshire Council when the Commissioner launched an investigation into whether the Council had breached its own Welsh language standards by not requiring a Welsh language impact assessment before granting permission for an affordable housing scheme. The Commissioner discontinued her investigation after consider the Council’s representations.
• Thames Water v Swindon Borough Council August 2025 on going. Acting for the Defendant faced with a judicial review of its decision to revise  its permitting fee structure with a view to recovering historic deficits. Case of national importance re the Traffic Management Act 2004 and the Traffic Management Permit Scheme (England) Regulations 2007.
• R(on the application of Lewis) v The Welsh Ministers & Velindre University NHS Trust [2022] EWHC 450 450 (Admin). Emyr acted for Velindre NHS Trust as interested party in a judicial review challenge to WG’s decision to approve its outline business case to build the new Velindre Cancer Centre in Whitchurch. Challenge dismissed. 
• R (on the application of Welsh Language Commissioner) v National Savings and Investments [2014] EWHC 488 (Admin). A claim that the reduction in the Welsh language provision of NS & I was unlawful; the hearing before the Divisional Court was heard partly in Welsh.
• R (on the application of Llewellyn) v Cardiff and Vale University Health Board [2013] EWHC 4099 (Admin).  A challenge to Health Board's decision to refuse to reimburse a patient for elective surgery undertaken in Germany
• Vale of Glamorgan Council v Lord Chancellor [2011] EWHC 1532 (Admin). Emyr, led by Winston Roddick QC, acted for the local authority in its judicial review challenge to the Lord Chancellor's decision to close Barry Magistrates' Court.

Emyr has been recognised as a leading property, commercial and chancery practitioner on the Wales and Chester Circuit for over 10 years. He has advised on and appeared in cases dealing with:

• contractual disputes in the commercial and TCC lists of the Business and Property Courts;
• rights of way;
• flooding;
• subsidence;
• trespass;
• restrictive covenants;
• TPOs;
• tenancies;
• constructive and resulting trusts;
• proprietary estoppel;
• disputed wills;
• construction of wills and trust instruments;
• Inheritance Act 1975.

He has successfully pursued and resisted applications for interim remedies such as property preservation orders, freezing orders and search orders and is tactically adept at their deployment. He has great experience of litigation involving farming enterprises e.g. proprietary estoppel claims relating to family farms and public and private law litigation relating to TB regulations. 

Cases of interest include:

• Coastal Housing Group v Mitchell and others [2024] EWHC 2831 (Ch) & Beacon Cymru Group Ltd (formerly Coastal Housing) v Mitchell [2025] EWHC 2477 (Ch). Emyr, leading a junior, appeared for the Welsh Ministers as Intervener in this test case litigation concerning the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 which now governs residential landlord and tenant law in Wales. In the first hearing the Divisional Court determined that rent was not lawfully dueto  landlords if they had failed to serve a copy of Electrical Condition Reports (ECRs) on contract holders (tenants). The second hearing dealt with the counterclaim of the contract holders in respect of rent paid when it was not due. The counterclaims were dismissed with the court acceding to the arguments advanced by the Welsh Ministers that (i) retention of the rent by the landlords was not unjust in all the circumstances given that contract holders had received the benefit of satisfactory housing and the statutory purpose of the Act and Regulations did not require repayment and (ii) that a restitutionary claim was not available where the contractual arrangement continued in force. The counterclaims also failed on causation grounds, all the contract holders confirming that they would have paid rent even if they been aware of the significance of the failure to serve ECRs. The landlords claim that the Regulations should be disapplied as being in breach of the Convention on Human Rights, resisted by Welsh Ministers, fell away as the counterclaims were dismissed.The Court of Appeal has given permission to appeal in respect of the first judgment. 
• Jones v Jameson [2025] EWHC 797 (KB) Emyr appeared for one of two legal owners of a development property facing a claim by a family member for beneficial ownership of the property under proprietary estoppel and an alternative claim in unjust enrichment. Both were dismissed at trial. Interesting issues arose on appeal re the constituent elements of unjust enrichment and in particular whether the trial judge’s findings of fact were sufficient to address failure of basis and free acceptance. Appeal was dismissed. 
• Roberts v Roberts 2023-2024. Emyr appeared for a son advancing a claim in proprietary estoppel against his father for breaching a promise to devise a dairy farm to the son. The son’s dairy enterprise was the biggest in north east Wales and raised issues as to whether it was unconscionable for the father to resile from his promise given the son’s other considerable farming assets. Against this, the son’s farming enterprise and the investments undertaken by him were premised upon use of the father’s farm with no alternative land available having regard to TB regulations and those relating to the spread of nitrates. Proceedings were complicated by the mother’s decision to divorce the father very late in life due to the breach of the promise and parallel financial remedy proceedings.  Case settled on the first day of trial with son purchasing the father’s interest in the farm. 
• Jones v Laugharne Corporation. Emyr acted for the Laugharne Corporation in an 8 day trial involving the boundary between neighbouring rural land and riparian rights to a stream located in the vicinity of the boundary. Judge delivered three judgments have acceded to Emyr’s application to withdraw his second judgment as being per incuriam.  
• John Gwynant Jones v Administrators of the estate of Dwyfor Jones. 4 day trial January 2022. Emyr acted for a 79 year old farmer who secured an unusual Bagum order entitling him to purchase the co-owned farmland. 
• Pullman & BFS v Welsh Ministers [2020] EWHC 2588 (Admin). Emyr acted for the Welsh Ministers in a claim against its tenants for the recovery of £1.4 million for the costs of remediating land contaminated with asbestos. The full sum was recovered following a 6 day trial involving the cross examination of experts on causation and remediation. The case is cited in Emmett at 26.530 for the scope of a tenant’s repairing covenants and involved other complicated legal issues regarding the implied terms of various licences and the extent of the duty to mitigate under indemnity clauses contained in those licences. 
• Re Ellen Jones. Case under the Inheritance Act where Emyr acted for a mature stepson with serious health difficulties in respect of the estate of his step mother. The principal issue was whether the claimant qualified as someone treated as a child of the family given that he was an adult when his father met the deceased. Judgment for the claimant November 2020. 
• Deraven v Liberty FE (Trade) DMCC (2015 - 2016). Emyr acted for the Mechel group in successfully obtaining summary judgment for £4.5 million against the Dubai based guarantor re the sale of Newport steelworks; Emyr obtained a post judgment freezing order which facilitated enforcement of the judgment.
• Re Glasdir estate (2015 – 2017). Emyr advised and represented Welsh Government regarding a £2 million compensation claim arising out of the flooding of some 120 homes at a new housing estate in Ruthin. There were 6 defendants and complicated issues of causation regarding the flood itself, conflicting expert evidence re flood risk and flood modelling. Case settled following a 2 day mediation. 
• Thomas v Jones, Palmer Tompkinson and Elliott (April 2016). Trial concerning an alleged vehicular right of way over SSSI and common on the Gower peninsula based on lost modern grant. Case complicated by the fact that the dispute was between other dominant owners and the claimant and not between the landowner and claimant. 
• Vatsaloo v Vale of Glamorgan (2015). Case concerning the adverse possession of woodland owned partly for landscape and visual amenity purposes and the nature of possessory acts required in that context.
• McLennan Architects Ltd v Jones [2014] EWHC 2604 (TCC). TCC claim with disputed applications for security for costs and for an interim remedy for inspection of the other side's computer database
• Pagliaro v Thomas [2008] WTLR 1417. A trusts claim in which the issue was whether interest payable to a fund held for a life tenant and remaindermen was to be characterised as income or a mix of capital and income and whether the trustees had the power to apportion between life-tenant and remaindermen. 

Emyr is a member of the following professional bodies:

• Planning and Environmental Bar Association (PEBA)
• Chancery Bar Association (ChBA)
• Wales and Chester Circuit

Emyr is a fluent Welsh speaker who is happy to undertake advocacy in the courts and at inquiries in the Welsh language.

Privacy Notice